I'm No Cinderella

Chapter 22

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Anything For You

I replayed that late night conversation with the prince many times over the following days. It had been... well, not quite pleasant.

Or, perhaps it had been pleasant, but the strange lingering emotions that I refused to allow myself to even identify afterward were not.

I had fallen onto his shoulder as sleep overcame me, I was able to gather that much. Though, the next morning I had awoken back in my own bed, with the hearth roaring against the far wall.

There was one question that kept repeating itself in my mind. If the mate bond is as unforgiving as they say, how much ground had I accidentally given up that night? It was for that reason that I couldn't bring myself to face him, outside of our nightly dinners, that is. As a result, unfortunately, my days returned to a very dull routine.

Wake. Lessons. Kitchen. Sitting room. Dinner. Sleep. Repeat.

I had grown so accustomed to my boring, lonely little schedule, that by the end of the first week, when the door to the sitting room opened unexpectedly, I nearly leapt from my skin.

"Good afternoon, Rose," a velvety voice greeted

The prince had paused in the doorway as his eyes landed on my form, hunched over a book on the settee with my feet tucked underneath me. My face flushed the moment our gazes met, and it was all I could do to tear my eyes away from the sight of him, his towering frame nearly blocking the entire doorway. My back straightened on instinct, putting nearly two months of Signora Flori's lessons to good use. "Hello," I mumbled back

The wooden soles of his shoes clicked against the stone floors as he entered the room, seeming to come to some sort of decision. I watched him from the corner of my eye as he sat at the desk and opened the folder that he had been clutching in his hand, getting to work reading whatever was inside.

I attempted to return to my own reading, but suddenly the words on the page had become hard to focus on. It had been challenging enough to understand before, but with his all-consuming presence filling the small space of the room, it had become even worse.

I found my gaze traveling to the desk more often than I would have liked, but it was as if I had no control of my own body. Sometimes, it felt as if the mate bond was a noose around my neck that I couldn't seem to keep from tightening, little by little. Other times, I could only marvel at the strength of it. It wasn't natural, not for my kind at least. But, there it was, influencing my every thought and action, regardless.

I should have hated him. I knew that deep within my heart. He was the Crown Prince and Alpha of the kingdom. A kingdom that still allowed people like myself to be sold as property in some areas, and be brutalized without consequence in the others. People like my father, whose last, bloody moments would be seared into my memory for the rest of my life, overshadowing all of the happy memories that came before. At the very least, I should hate him for that, and for the countless other children out there who had likely suffered through similar trauma.

But try as I might, I couldn't bring the fire to course through my veins as it should. At times, a tiny voice in my head would insist that it was because I could see such good in him, but I tried to ignore it. I could see it for what it really was: the mate bond sinking its teeth in. And, even after attempting to limit my interactions with the prince for an entire week, the mate bond did not return what I had unknowingly given to it.

I watched him as he read through whatever was in the folder, guilt pooling in my gut as I openly gawked at him. But, how could I not? Mate or no mate, he was the most beautiful man I had ever laid eyes on. And there he was, sitting only feet away.